


his silence golden

by arahir



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Curses, Emotional Constipation, Extreme Thirst: We're Stuck In Norvrandt Edition, M/M, Mutual Pining, Protective Thancred I guess??, Ryne Has Two Dads, but soft-like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:38:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24560179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arahir/pseuds/arahir
Summary: The pixies take Urianger's voice. Thancred and Ryne help, but not really.“Say something.” Thancred wants to take a step back, maybe turn around, maybe leave entirely because whatever else has been between them, silence has never been it. Not this charged thing. His heart courses in his chest with every moment more that it stretches. “Gods damn you, you ridiculous—” He pushes into Urianger’s space instead, grabs him by what passes for the collar of his stupid robe. The jewelry that graces Urianger’s every limb tinkles like glass as he braces himself on the table behind him, eyes going suddenly wide, “—talk to me!”Nothing. He says nothing. Urianger’s gaze shifts to the hand nearly at his throat and then catches on Thancred's lips before their eyes meet. A smile that’s only half in humor twists his mouth, and then, at last, it opens—And closes without a sound.
Relationships: Urianger Augurelt/Thancred Waters
Comments: 38
Kudos: 203





	his silence golden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shoutz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoutz/gifts).



> Written for @shoutzwastaken on twitter!

It's not immediately obvious that something has gone wrong. 

Thancred and Ryne arrive at the Shelves past noon, having set out in the early hours, neither of them able to sleep with so much on their minds.

"Like old times," Thancred says once the Shelves are in sight. This used to be their regular haunt, but since the Warrior came to the first and brought back the night and Urianger moved on, they haven't had cause to come back. Not until now. Urianger believes something in the endless stacks of books will tell him something he doesn't already know about aether and souls and returning them to the Source. 

And, well, someone has to come by with a regular delivery of the Eulmoran tea and sweet biscuits, if only to make sure the pixies haven't accidentally drowned Urianger in the lake in their absence.

They gust in the door in a whirlwind of habit; their home away from home. Actually, their only stable home for years, but Thancred chooses to ignore that as he hangs his jacket on the shelf with the hook on it closest to the door without looking and sets his blade against the wall in the place its long since worn a groove for itself. "Hello, hello," he says to Urianger, though Ryne's already beat him to it with a hug and a flurry of words about Gaia and the Crystarium and gods know what else.

She doesn't leave Urianger room to get a word in edgewise, but that's fine; they share a smile of greeting over the top of her head. 

"—and I meant to get you the coffee biscuits we had—they really were incredible! They have a new sort of candy, too. Thancred got a box of them for you—oh," she puts a hand in front of her mouth, "—was that supposed to be a surprise?" 

He sighs. It was. "No. Urianger is too old for surprises." 

Urianger quirks an eyebrow at him. 

"Oh, don't. They're in the bag." Along with several extremely heavy tomes from the Exarch's collection that Urianger had best be grateful for. "Ryne, would you—" Thancred motions to their other bag, which is full of cartridges that need imbuing. She nods so fast it might as well be a salute and brief, old regret pinches at him. He's still a sorry excuse for a guardian, and he likes to think he's getting better, but there are some discussions that can't wait and aren't meant for her ears. 

She grabs the bag and heads back outside. Thancred waits until the door is firmly shut before he turns to Urianger. "How goes it?" he asks softly. 

Urianger stands and starts sorting through the bag of books set on the table. His silence says volumes on its own. 

"That bad. Well, what did I expect." Thancred sighs. "The Exarch has sequestered himself off, gods know where, doing gods know what. Wanted you to have those before he went. And the Warrior is off running himself in circles, but that's nothing new." 

He pauses and waits for Urianger to fill the silence with some long and wise-worded quip, but it doesn't come. In fact, he hasn’t said a word since they arrived, Thancred realizes.

"Urianger?" 

He doesn't immediately turn. Something in the bow of his back, in the arch of his bared spine and the chains of gold that glitter where they hang across it, is wrong. 

"Look at me." 

This, at least, he does. Slowly, deliberately, he turns—but nothing is amiss. The only thing wrong with his face is that it's pinched with a frown. He's hiding something, but then, when _isn't_ he?

Thancred stifles a sigh and folds his arms. "Out with it." 

One of Thancred’s oldest and best-trained skills is coming up with the worst possible scenario. Perhaps Urianger is trying to find the words to tell him they're stuck in the First for true and ever. Perhaps, as their bodies pass in the Source, so will their souls pass here. That’s an easy one. Or maybe the Lightwardens are back and ready to devour all of Norvrandt over again. Better, maybe they got sent to the Source. Maybe Elidibus is dancing a jig atop Ul'dah as they speak and all Eorzea is flooded in blinding light. That’ll give the Garleans a run for their money at least. 

But… Urianger isn't saying anything. Not obfuscating, not calling him a fool, only looking with his gold eyes half-shadowed, as if he could convey all that need be known without a word. Thancred is good at knowing what he’s thinking, but not _that_ good. It sends a shudder up his spine.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Still, Urianger says nothing. He blinks his heavy-lidded gaze, something about his expression almost animal in its intensity. He lowers his head a fraction, hair falling forward enough that the quiet sigh he gives next lifts it off his face. Not a word. 

“Say something _._ ” Thancred wants to take a step back, maybe turn around, maybe leave entirely because whatever else has been between them, silence has never been it. Not this charged thing. His heart courses in his chest with every moment more that it stretches. “Gods damn you, you ridiculous—” He pushes into Urianger’s space instead, grabs him by what passes for the collar of his stupid robe. The jewelry that graces Urianger’s every limb tinkles like glass as he braces himself on the table behind him, eyes going suddenly wide, “— _talk to me!_ ”

Nothing. He says nothing. Urianger’s gaze shifts to the hand nearly at his throat and then catches on Thancred's lips before their eyes meet. A smile that’s only half in humor twists his mouth, and then, at last, it opens—

And closes without a sound. 

Urianger shrugs. Somewhere behind them, Thancred hears the sound of laughter, light and bright and fae. The pixies. 

“Son of a bitch. You can’t, can you? They’ve taken your voice.”

Relief strikes across Urianger’s face like dawn—or the cool of night settling over Norvrandt after too long without, and now Thancred can see the lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes for the worry they are. They took his voice. Urianger Augurelt, divested of his most precious tool.

Something not as undignified as a giggle but certainly not a laugh works its way up from Thancred’s center. He bows his head, though they’re still pressed so close it only serves to give him full view of Urianger’s half-bared chest. “They’ve taken your _voice,_ ” he says again around the mirth, “and you don't know how to fix it.” 

The last is only a guess, but it’s confirmed when Urianger pushes him off with a touch more force than necessary. In all their years of shared cause, he can’t recall seeing the man out of his element more than once or twice, and never so desperately. Well, maybe the lake. This is better because it doesn’t involve needing to jump into water to get him, and it’s a moment he needs to savor.

Pixies tittering is the music of Il Mheg; he’s learned to ignore it or stepping foot in the valley would drive him mad in moments. Now he turns to the cracked open door, where dozens of small bodies are pressed against the gap, watching them. They scatter when he releases Urianger and steps toward them.

Outside, Ryne is sitting in the grass, helping make what had best not be a crown of flowers for him to wear, but almost certainly is, and all the pixies are busying themselves with meaningless tasks as though they’ve never heard of the concept of mischief. 

She stands to attention, flowers spilling off her lap. “I’m nearly done with the cartridges, I swear.” She stops when she sees the expression on his face. “Thancred? What’s wrong?” 

He nods his head at the pixies, who are never this quiet for this long. He should have known. “That’s what I’d like to know.” Pixie hierarchies are nebulous at best; Feo Ul could probably fix Urianger with a breath, but that would mean dragging the Warrior of Light away from whatever essential, epic, world-saving bottle of wine or magical cheese he’s off fetching. And then there’s the small but persistent part of him that doesn’t want to see this solved so easy. That wants to see Urianger off his game. That wants to see Urianger, perhaps for only the second time in his life, need help.

“Oh? Figured it out so soon!” This pixie’s wings are a bit redder than the rest, its skin a bit greener. It kicks the air as it speaks, fists clenched. 

The ringleader then. "Quite the trick," Thancred tells it, and the green around its cheeks goes blush-bright. He meant it to come across wry, but forgot that nuance is not exactly the province of the fae. Certainly that was one of Urianger's lessons, back when they first came, and this new world was full of hopeless danger and odd mystery. Of course, he'd oft forgotten Thancred had two years on him in the First. Time enough to learn about all Norvrandt's dangers—and the paramount was setting foot in Il Mheg, though Urianger had chosen, as he often does, to ignore his advice on that entirely. Leave it to a man who takes up star-reading in a land of eternal daylight. Leave it to him to succeed despite all logic. 

No, this isn't an opportunity he can afford to waste. 

"What, exactly, did you do?" 

They laugh. Bells ringing in the mist that's started to gather around the Shelves, magical or otherwise, he's almost afraid to know. "Only played a wee trick. Where'd be the fun in telling?" 

He says nothing, waiting for their pleasure at their own cleverness to get the best of them. It takes less than two breaths before they break.

"Put a spell on his leaf water," one chimes. Another gags.

"—Took him three days to realize!" crows one. 

Nothing more terrifying than a pixie's delight. Well, maybe Y'shtola's. Three days, though. He can imagine the panic in Urianger's eyes with horrific clarity. Him trying to speak, failing, clutching his throat, trying to heal himself better. The lake all over again. 

Ryne frowns. "Wait, what's happened to Urianger? Is he hurt?"

"No." No more than not talking will pain him, so—probably quite a bit, really.

"We've borrowed his voice," a pixie beside Ryne's ear that's been weaving blue-petalled flowers into her orange locks confesses. "He wouldn't talk to us. He's been so boring with his books. We thought we might help him feel something."

"Help. Yes. I'm sure." Thancred feels a headache coming on. And he'd been doing so well. Tasks start ordering themselves in an endless list in his mind and for a moment he laments the days when he could decide to do something with no thought or planning at all. Change his mind. Head to a tavern. Find a warm body to—

Gold eyes flash through his mind, heavy lidded, looking down at him. Oh, no. Gods, no. 

"We will tell you the secret," a pixie he didn't notice getting close whispers in his ear, tugging at his hair. "He need only have a bit of fun. Let his blood run a bit…"

"Blood?" Thancred's runs cold in his veins, thinking of the literal. Of all the Scions, the task of letting blood or losing it falls to Thancred or the Warrior, the twins when it can't be avoided, Y'shtola at the most unexpected moments—never Urianger. He would, in a moment, of course, but no. He's not expendable and neither is his blood, and not for some ridiculous pixie magic. His hand is on his blade before he can still it, though he knows it will do nothing.

But the pixie at his ear is giggling. "Yes! It's all gone cold. He has no passion. He used to play with us all the day, asked us a thousand questions, but now it's books and more books."

A sigh gusts out of him. Ah. Of course. The fae can be cruel, but only in ignorance, and they've never thirsted for blood. Thancred pinches the bridge of his nose and tries to translate their words into something that makes sense. Passion, really. “Then you've doomed him." The only thing, in his experience, Urianger truly has passion for is study, but if burying himself in books was going to work, it would have already. His great second love is talking.

Thancred takes a breath of the sweet eternal-summer air and turns to Ryne. "Can you finish with the ammunition?" 

“Nearly.” She holds up a belt of cartridges. Somehow the aether flows better here, well enough to make her task a breeze—not that he'd know. To him this place feels as magical as a Lominsan bar, and the cartridges in her hand look no different than the rest sitting in the bag.

He nods. “Good.”

"We're not leaving?" she asks. "Urianger needs our help." Oh there's the stubborn glint that's been making itself known of late. He's as proud of it as he is vexed. "I'm not going," she adds, and she might as well stamp her foot in the grass, too, if she's going to use that tone. 

"No, we're not leaving. Come on."

They leave the pixies outside—a task all its own as one tries to smuggle its way in under Ryne's skirt and another attempts the same with Thancred's belts and less success. Urianger is exactly where Thancred left him, leaned against the table in perfect, uncharacteristic silence. There is something peculiarly morose in his posture; at first Thancred took it for worry about their… situation, as it were, but when has Urianger Augurelt ever lamented a challenge?

Pouting, really. "I'm sorry for before. Let me guess: the spell won't let you speak of it?"

Urianger doesn't nod or shake his head or move at all but to fold his arms and lower his gaze. Ah, yes. Thancred nods and sets a hand on his shoulder as he steps past him. "Can you write, at least?" 

This gets him a tight nod. "Presumably, excluding certain topics?" Another nod, this one sharper, and Thancred wonders if he tried, if he thought to ask someone for discreet help by letter when the spell didn't resolve itself in a day and realized he couldn't. What was his plan? To simply live with it, Thancred realizes. Stubborn, independent fool—though, it takes one to know one.

Ryne grabs one of Urianger's hands in both of her own. "We'll help you. Tight, Thancred?" 

Her tone suggests it's less of a question and more of something that _will_ happen whether he agrees or not. "Oh, I don't know. I think this is an improvement," he says, just to see her frown and step between them.

"Thancred—" 

"I'm only joking." He looks around at the endless stacks of books. "I assume at least some of these are about the fae? You can keep reading up on our predicament and we'll read up on yours."

Urianger quirks a brow at him that absolutely means, _Oh? Thou canst read?_ Thancred shoves his shoulder as he steps away. "Yes, I can read. Keep that up and your next words will be in the Source."

* * *

They settle into a quiet afternoon. Thancred concedes to take off some of his armor and sets up at a table with a stack of paper. Most fae tricks he knows his way around already from Urianger's endless lectures on the topic, but there's still more to learn. "This is interesting. Did you know if you dip a newborn in Amaro milk and leave them at the feet of a leafman, a pixie might come and bless them?"

Urianger pointedly doesn't look at him, and hasn't at the last eight similar comments, but Ryne perks up from her spot against the shelves where she's curled around a volume half as large as she is. "I didn't know Amaros had milk… Do you think that would work? Have you tried it yet, Urianger?"

Thancred subdues his grin. "Yes, have you given that a try?"

Evidently not, and evidently the spell doesn't prevent him from using hand gestures to say what he thinks. Thancred gives him a winning smile and turns back to his own text, for all the good it will do. The pixies all but told him so, but thus far he had been hoping he might rile Urianger up enough to get him to yell, or that Ryne might do something sweet enough to warm his heart into praising her. Surely, that's what they meant.

_Let his blood run a bit…_

He waves the pixie's words from his mind. No. Even the thought of talking to Urianger about passion and blood is not—no. No. Absolutely not. 

But he only makes it through another page on the specifics of attracting or dispelling the fae, with an odd interlude about beavers, before he loses focus. The dialect is different from that of the Source and the only reason he's within of yalm of Urianger's ability to comprehend it all is his two-year head start. He's feeling both of them now, and the previous three beside. A long time, and how much of it has he spent here in this chair, with Urianger a few steps away, buried in his own important thoughts? Usually a low murmur accompanies it, all his musings on the issue of the day, all his new discoveries falling from his lips in a low cadence as Thancred sits and waits and listens. For a time, it was the only way he could get to sleep. After he found out about Minfilia or her reincarnation, kept prisoner in Eulmore for a hundred years. Those hazy months when it was all he could do to not walk straight into Eulmore and fight his way to her. 

He starts as he remembers what the pixie said. _Took him three days to realize!_

Then all that talking, all those words were for him, and he doesn't know what to do with that. He pushes it carefully aside to join the growing pile in the corner of his mind. Small facts and noticings about Urianger, irrelevant on their own, but in their summing something else entirely.

For all Thancred’s ribbing, Urianger's silence is worse, by far. He wipes a hand through his hair and uses the motion as an excuse to sneak a glance at Urianger, and then away as soon as he recognizes the pinch in his pale brows. 

He only wears that look when he's particularly troubled. The last time was in the moments after Thancred pulled him back on the dock after his unplanned dip in Sullen's waters. Wet hair heavy and dripping across his gold eyes, mouth open, still gasping for air, hands gripped so tight to Thancred's shoulder and arm that they left bruises later. He'd found them in the mirror after, set his own hand against the mark and wondered, of only for an instant, if only for the slightest breath—

Thancred stands so fast his chair screeches across the floor. 

In unison, Urianger and Ryne put down their tomes and give him an almost identical look. 

"I think I'll take a walk. Get some fresh air."

 _At night?_ Urianger's brow quirks. _In Il Mheg?_

"At night?" Ryne asks. "Here?" Gods, they really are rubbing off on each other. 

"Yes, at _night_. I am actually quite capable of taking care of myself, thank you." 

They share a skeptical look. Unfair. Utterly unfair. 

He grabs his jacket on the way out, though he needn't have bothered. The evening air is balmy and perfect. The pixies that spent most of the afternoon pressed against the windows and holes in the old lodge have lost interest, so there's nothing to distract him from his thoughts. Nothing but his own stubbornness. 

Once he would have drowned them in a bottle or three and quite without regret, but that memory, too, is colored with the sound of Urianger's voice listing off endless names and his gaze by lamplight.

Thancred kicks the nearest rock and gets a sore toe for his effort. Not fair to the rock. Not fair to him. It's been too long in the First, too many hard days. Only sensible that he would cling to what’s familiar. Only sensible to miss it when it's gone—though if Urianger ever finds out his voice is missed it will be the death of the last of Thancred’s dignity. 

_Let his blood run a bit…_

Thancred closes his eyes and leans against the log support by the door. He had a reputation once for being impulsive. It wasn't true—he was never impulsive. Simply decisive, and fast to act. Urianger might claim that the same, but it's not. He knows what he needs to do. It’s a long shot, foolish on multiple fronts, and yet the idea is there, just beyond where he can acknowledge it in full. 

After all, there’s more than one way to surprise even one as unflappable as Urianger. 

* * *

The fresh air does its job. He slips back inside once he's slapped some water from the barrels outside onto his face and gathered his thoughts and reason. His gaze goes to Ryne by habit. She's fallen asleep and Urianger is stood beside her, the book she was reading held loose in hands. Thancred steps up beside him and stares down at her a moment before he shoulders off his jacket and spreads it over her.

She's come a long way. There are still shades of Minfilia in her that make him ache, but her stubbornness is all her own. Her curiosity, too, though it reminds him of someone else. As he thinks it, his gaze slides to Urianger. He’s staring at down at Ryne still, lost in his own thoughts. As Thancred watches, he reaches down and, with long, careful, ink-stained fingers brushes a lock of red hair off her face, where it looks like she's about to eat it in her sleep. The gesture makes something in Thancred’s chest go terribly soft. When Urianger stands again, he catches Thancred's gaze and nods to the stairs. 

Thancred's stomach flips over on itself, but he nods back, and together they make their way up the stairs as quiet as they can manage.

How many times have they done this? A hundred, at least. Stolen away to talk and share space once Minfilia—once _Ryne_ —fell asleep. Or carried her up, one or the other of them, and tucked her away in Urianger's makeshift palette so they could continue their conversation among the tomes below. 

The first time, it was so Urianger could confess his vision about the Warrior of Light, the fall of the Source, their doom. Three years ago, before Thancred rescued Ryne, even. Though he realizes now, with a bitter pang, that it was a lie. Even in the private quiet they shared, Urianger couldn't trust him with the truth. Though, knowing him, he likely framed it as some sparing of feelings. Thancred was already dealing with so much, he would have thought, why burden him with that, too? 

It would bother him less if Urianger hadn’t made a habit out of it. Even over something as ridiculous as swimming or losing his voice to a pixie trick.

At the top of the stairs, he pauses and watches as Urianger begins sorting through notes and papers, recognizable by his fine scrawl that covers every inch of them. Messy writing when he doesn’t mean it for others to read; Thancred is good at interpreting out of necessity. His robes have marks of dust on them and his hair is the slightest bit disheveled—all small things he wouldn’t have cause to notice if he hadn’t had years of practice. With Urianger's back to him, the long spread of his back is bare but for the gilt around his neck and the chains that trail from it, twinkling in the candlelight. 

Thancred watches as his own half-gloved hand reaches out and claps loosely around one of the chains, not pulling so much as holding. The metal is warm. Everything is warm. Urianger runs hot; who knew.

He did. What a natural thing to notice about one’s colleague. One’s friend. Not strange in the least. 

"Will you ever tire of keeping secrets from us?"

Urianger turns his head, a question in his eyes until he sees how close Thancred is standing. The question changes. 

"Don't give me that look. You could have called. Why didn't you?" Not him, but anyone. The Exarch would have made short work of it; Y'shtola, too. Anyone with magic. The Warrior never tires of odd tasks and Feo Ul is ever delighted to help. The excuse of not wanting to bother anyone is thin as paper.

Urianger turns back to his tomes, one-sided conversation over before it started. Annoyance spikes. Thancred tugs the chain in his hand—not hard, but with enough force to get Urianger's attention. 

"This is just like Sullen. You could have asked for our help before you drowned yourself. And as much as I enjoyed hauling you to shore in full armor," to say nothing of the gold that weighed Urianger's every limb, "I don't want our best shot at getting back to the Source in one piece to die because he's too ridiculous to admit he might need a hand!"

Urianger is chained to the spot quite literally. No eyes to cast down at Thancred now, no mouth to twist, no clever tongue. For once, he can only stand and listen. 

"That's not counting the Lightwardens. Your _vision_ of the future _._ " Thancred takes a breath. "Or Minfilia."

That's the one that really bit, and bit deep. It will never stop biting, even if he's made his peace, and Urianger did it all by design. He didn't tell a soul. 

"I'm not angry about it. And I don't care if you don't tell the rest of them, but you owe me. You know you do. So the next time you've run yourself neck-deep into some ridiculous, unsolvable situation, you'll tell me. You will." He punctuates it with a tug he doesn’t mean to give. By the end of it, his voice is clipped and forcing it out of his throat is a challenge all its own. Thancred makes himself release the chain and steps back, take a breath, center himself. 

Urianger turns after a moment and the look in his eyes—ah. There it is. Thancred could never have said his piece with those eyes on him, so full of regret. They are beautiful. He can admit that much to himself, at least.

None of this was what he meant to say, none of it was what he came up here to do, but it's long in coming. Better to have it out now, while Urianger can do little more than look sorry. 

And he does. He looks pained, and worse, he looks young. It's easy to forget all the years he has on Urianger. The man might pretend to the—what was it, ageless sorcerer?—but in some things he still shows his inexperience. Not out of his twenties and carrying the weight of two worlds. 

It only gets heavier, Thancred wants to tell him. That's why you don't carry it alone. 

Some lessons can't be taught. Some have to be learned by trial and endless error. Thancred would know. No words will make this make sense to Urianger, but maybe his anger will. Maybe… 

He takes another breath and then reaches forward with the hand that held the chain and cups Urianger's cheek along his jaw and cheek, along that ridiculous edge of a beard and the dark curl of ink on his cheek. His too-soft too-long hair slips between Thancred's bare fingers, and then it's easy as anything to pull Urianger’s mouth down to meet his own. 

Urianger tenses but doesn't pull away. Doesn't move at all. Thancred sends a prayer to whatever gods are still listening in the First that this actually works, and then shifts, deepens the kiss, loses himself in it the way he has a thousand times before, the way he can by muscle memory.

It's different, though. 

Usually the person he's pressed against is softer than himself, nearer his height, smelling of wine or perfume or both. Never this. Urianger is hard edges, ridiculous height that Thancred has to rise almost to his toes to meet. His stubble scratches, and he smells of nothing but old books, tastes of nothing but tea and the sugar that crusted the biscuits he ate instead of a proper dinner. All of this registers in a breath, in a few beats of Thancred’s heart in his chest—too hard, too fast—before Urianger comes alive. 

It's as if he really was frozen until that moment. Once he moves, it’s all at once and overwhelming. He bends, wraps one arm around Thancred's waist, and presses his other hand against the tattoo on Thancred's neck, changing the angle as his mouth opens and asks for—everything. 

Of course, Urianger would be a good kisser. Of course, buried in his books, hiding in his robes and those terrible goggles, this would be waiting.

Thancred curses himself as he opens his mouth to the tongue at the seam of his lips and the kiss goes from chaste, to less-than-chaste, and settles somewhere around ruinous. Just his luck, as always. It’s all he can do to remember to breathe. The bracelets around Urianger's arms dig into his side. His stubble is going to leave a mark that will be impossible to explain to Ryne. Thancred examines all of this only at a distance because now that Urianger is participating, the other unavoidable fact is that this is the closest he has been to anyone in three years, and that aside, as one kiss bleeds into two and he loses count in the next, it's the best he’s had in years beyond that. 

Urianger steps into the knife’s edge of space that was still between them and now the hardness of the body against his is an unavoidable fact. The heat, the odd press of jewelry made like armor contrasting with his bare skin, the press of muscle under supple robes. No pretending this is some maid in a bar, no pretending this is anyone but exactly who it is. Thancred's reason goes up in smoke and lust and he horrifies himself by pressing into Urianger’s height, forcing them impossibly closer

It may be too close. Hip to hip. Urianger's hand at the small of his back fists into his shirt and holds him there as Urianger makes a small, low sound of pleasure—

They both freeze. 

A beat passes, and another. 

Urianger is the first to break the kiss. He moves away a scant breath, eyes wide as Thancred has ever seen them. "I—" he starts, voice no more than a rasp, and then stops. 

Ah, of course. Right. His _voice_. Thancred blinks as his mind comes back online in fits and starts and pretends it's a victory, and pretends that he remembered why he started in on this fool plan in the first place, and pretends the tremble in his fingers as he unfists them from Urianger's hair and robes is not there at all. 

They can't look at each other. Or, Thancred can't look at him. He assumes it's mutual. "Well. Grand. You can talk again." 

Oh, all wrong. He isn't even sure if he meant it to sound disappointed or sarcastic or genuine, but he certainly didn't mean it to sound pathetic, which it does. 

Urianger starts, "Thancred." 

"No, don't thank me. It was a gamble. In fact, let's not speak of it all." 

His hands are still shaking. He’s shocked at himself. It would be funny if it were happening to anyone else.

"...If that is thy desire,” Urianger murmurs.

It isn't. That's the worst part. His desire is making itself very known and in ways obvious and awkward, and in other, hidden ways. Ways that make a part of him scream when Urianger finally pulls away completely, the solid presence of him, the heat, his paper-and-pine scent fading in an instant. 

Oh, _gods_. 

Thancred fists his hands until the leather covering his palms is stretched so tight it bites his skin, just to stop himself from reaching out and doing something they'll both regret. "Ryne is still downstairs," he says lamely. 

Not really an explanation at all, but it at least makes the hard lines setting on Urianger's face start to soften. "So she is."

He smiles faintly and reaches a hand up to his mouth, runs his thumb along his lips to drag away the shine from the—the kiss. From Thancred’s _mouth_ , and the fly-away hair there at Urianger’s cheek is from Thancred’s fingers. He’s fine. He’s absolutely fine. 

Not once does Urianger’s gaze leave Thancred's face

It’s a gaze he's well versed in reading by now. A whole volume could pass between them, plain as Urianger’s unintelligible scrawl on the papers behind him, plain as the flicker of gold in his eyes that Thancred has seen now from inches away, plain as the flecks of amber in them that glitter now, darker than usual.

 _Next time_ , it promises. 

Thancred takes a breath, drags a hand through his hair, and then makes himself take another breath for good measure, and nods.

Next time.

**Author's Note:**

> [ Please check out this lovely art by Yaron on twitter <3333 ](https://twitter.com/Grimm_FFXIV/status/1270421659137175553)
> 
> [[fic on twitter](https://twitter.com/arahir/status/1269013518126247937)]
> 
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